Three Weeks Later.
...

"How does it feel?"

"...Pardon?"

Shisui's eyes flickered to regard Itachi, his left brow rising. "How does finally being a shinobi feel?" he reiterated. "You are graduating today, correct?"

Itachi shrugged in response. "Technically, I am not a shinobi yet," the younger boy mused as he fiddled with a set of iron ball bearings. "Not until the ceremony is over at least."

"Semantics," Shisui dismissed, his face contorting in a slight frown. "You aren't excited about this?"

"Should I be?" Itachi countered, his tone indifferent.

"Come on, you're a shinobi now."

"And what's so special about being a standard-issue jarhead who occasionally throws up gang signs? We are not much different from every other entity with the capacity for violence, just with less autonomy. I fail to see the significance."

The clearing fell silent as Shisui contemplated the younger Uchiha's words. Moments later he sighed, what little enthusiasm he managed to muster seemingly escaping him like gas from a punctured balloon. He unsealed two small lunchboxes from a scroll in his pouch, sighing again as he stared disappointedly at them.

"Well," Shisui said, peeking at Itachi out of the corner of his eye as he palmed the cloth-wrapped packages, "in celebration of your not-so-big deal, I got premium takeout from old lady Toriiya's stall. But, since you don't seem to think this is anything worth celebrating I could always have it returned."

"Give it," Itachi said.

"But you just said—" Shisui started.

"I said it wasn't worth celebrating. I never said I wasn't going to eat. Give it."

Shisui chuckled as he relinquished one of the lunch boxes to a suddenly enthusiastic Itachi.

"You got Ramen for yourself?" Itachi muttered as he opened his box.

"Yeah, I did," Shisui replied.

"Toriiya's has oyakodon," the younger Uchiha pointed out.

"And I love her oyakodon."

"But you didn't get oyakodon."

"...Can we not do this today?"

Itachi shook his head, disappointed. "I just don't understand why you wouldn't get oyakodon."

"Itachi, I—"

"You made a choice, Shisui. You chose good over great. That's a bad quality to have."

For a moment, there was only the sound of tinkling utensils as the younger Uchiha dug into his meal without breaking eye contact with his adversarial companion. Then, suddenly, a long-suffering sigh echoed through the clearing.

"I apologise for my misdemeanour, Itachi-sama," Shisui acquiesced, deadpan.

Itachi shrugged in response. "And I forgive you, dearest Padawan," he said, repeating another one of his made-up, odd-sounding titles. "I won't ask you not to do it again because I know you will," he continued. "But as your friend, I will always be here to show you the path to salvation even if you are adamant about remaining blind to it."

Shisui's left brow rose dubiously. "...Old lady Toriiya's oyakodon is the path to salvation?"

"Shisui. Don't."

"Alright. Alright," the older Uchiha chuckled, raising his hands in mock surrender. This was nice, Shisui decided. Despite his age and general antisocialism, Itachi always had the best banter.

"On a lighter note," Shisui said in between bites, "I heard Yuna-san got chosen to be your Jōnin-sensei?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, it's been nice knowing you."

Itachi paused between bites, looking up to make eye contact. "Is she that bad?" he asked. "I haven't heard of her before."

Shisui shook his head. "You couldn't have. She vanished for a few years after making Jōnin, so either she was on an extremely long mission and recently returned or—"

"ANBU."

Shisui nodded. "I never had the chance to work alongside her, but before her disappearance, Yuna-san had quite the reputation."

"How bad of a reputation?" Itachi inquired. Shisui grimaced, considering how to be honest without harpooning Itachi's first impression of the Kunoichi.

"Very," he said after a moment of contemplation, opting for brevity as his best strategy.

…

Kaede was not happy.

Behind her, rows of desks, neatly aligned, stood in silent anticipation, their polished surfaces reflecting the soft glow of the late afternoon sun filtering in through the windows. The classroom was empty save for the two boys sharing the space with her. Tatsuya, the class loafer, lounged behind one of the tables with his head pillowed on his arms, nothing surprising there. However, she had hoped for more from her other teammate, Itachi, but disappointment seemed to be her only companion today. The shorter boy stood a bit further away, leaning against a table with his arms crossed across his chest as he fiddled with a set of ball bearings, seemingly unfazed by their sensei's tardiness.

"Our teacher is late!" Kaede groused as she impatiently palmed the hilt of her katana. "All the other teams have already gone off with their Jōnin-senseis, and we still haven't seen even the hide of ours! To make matters worse, there's you lot who seem to think this is normal." she sneered, looking at them, disappointed. "Good Sage, I am screwed, aren't I?"

Tatsuya, true to his usual idling self, did not bother lifting his head from the table as he replied. "Sensei's going to get here eventually, no?" he said. "Relax, Kaede. there's no sense in taking everything too seriously. How do you even survive being this strung up all the time?"

"I take things too seriously?" Kaede growled, affronted. She turned to Itachi, but the boy simply raised his hands as if to disavow himself from the matter entirely.

"Hy, don't look at me," he said as he stepped around the table he had been leaning on to plop himself in the seat behind it. "I am not taking any sides in whatever this is; I barely know either of you."

"I don't need you to take any sides," Kaede hissed. "I need you to care. Why do I feel like the only one bothered about this?"

"Because you are?" Tatsuya chimed in.

"You—" Kaede began, but before she could erupt with a scathing retort, Itachi interrupted, his gaze panning to the door. "She's here," he announced.

Kaede spun on her heels to face the kunoichi at the door. Yuna-sensei stood there, one hand on her hip, her gaze piercing as she stared the group down. Intimidating was the first word that came to mind when Kaede laid eyes upon the woman who was to be her tutor for the foreseeable future. Brown eyes, sharp and unyielding, were framed by two fang markings etched onto the woman's cheeks. Her brown hair was pulled back tightly into a severe high ponytail, and adding to her formidable appearance was an old scar on the right side of her upper lip, which accentuated her sneer with an extra touch of fierceness.

By her side sat a muscular, heavily-scarred hound the colour of midnight. The ninja dog sat on its thick, sinewy haunches as it stared at them with a calmness that sent the lizard part of Kaede's brain racing at a hundred miles an hour.

The kunoichi snorted as Kaede caught herself slowly backpedalling away, the sound coming across as gruff and inelegant.

"Is this Team Nine?" Yuna-sensei asked before chuckling darkly when no one responded. "I hope you for your own good you aren't the little shitstains I am supposed to watch…

"If so, my condolences."

…

Training Ground Zero-Nine.

"FORM UP!"

Contrary to popular belief, Tatsuya Hyuga was not slothful to the point of self-destruction. Frankly, he wasn't even particularly slothful. He just generally did not see the need to put in more effort than was required of him for any given task. From a purely pragmatic perspective, one might even consider him more efficient than lazy. Still, nothing was ever so cut and dry in this world. In a class choke-full of try-hards and overzealous, pretentious snobs it was beyond easy to simply label the unconventional Hyuga as a wastrel lacking even a modicum of gratitude in his bones for the abundant privilege he was born into.

If nothing at all, at least Kaede seemed to think so. Why Tatsuya was condemned to the same team with the most pretentious and overzealous try-hard of them all was beyond him. The team had barely coalesced and already he was fed up.

And like the most repulsive of toppings to this pile of absolute dogshit, there was the queen bitch herself to help sweeten the deal.

Yuna-sensei hawked and spat to the side as she caught sight of Tatsuya's irate glare. "Got something you want to say to me, White-eyes?"

"No," Tatsuya mumbled in response.

"I didn't catch that."

"No, ma'am!"

The wicked grin on her face was unmistakable. "That's what I thought. Now, before we begin, let me make one thing clear: I have no interest in coddling a bunch of soft, weedy twerps. If you fail to impress me today, rest assured I won't waste my time training you. Instead, I'll make your lives a living hell until the Hokage deems it too much of a risk to your mental, physical, and emotional well-being to allow you to continue to remain under my tutelage. I cannot say how long that would take but expect to spend a few weeks of your lives as ponderously tortured existences. I am not a woman who takes kindly to failures. Long story short, you will impress me today regardless of your willingness or capacity to do so."

Tatsuya felt a lump form in his throat. He snuck a glance at his equally unfortunate colleagues. Kaede's face had taken a pallid hue. The girl seemed to sense his gaze as her eyes swivelled to regard him, expression twisting in unease. Tatsuya's eyes flickered down to Itachi and he found the younger boy seemingly indifferent.

Whether his expression was frozen in fear or he truly didn't care, Tatsuya could not say for certain.

"Your task today is simple," Yuna-sensei continued, tossing a scroll toward Kaede, who fumbled to catch it. "For the next ten minutes, you will guard that scroll with your lives. I will be giving you a five-minute headstart to organise and strategise out of sight, after which I'll come for the scroll. I do not expect you to keep the scroll away from me for the entirety of the remaining five minutes, but I do expect you to make me work for it. Anything less and I will consider it a challenge for me to do my worst. Any questions?"

Kaede hesitantly raised one hand and was promptly ignored.

"Good, now feck off. Your time starts now."

…

Itachi's limpid gaze lingered on the spot where his hyper-aggressive Jonin-sensei stood a second ago before panning to regard his diametrically opposed teammates still frozen in indecision. Distraught, he shook his head gently as a sigh escaped his chest.

"So, this is my new normal?" he mused as his senses expanded into the canopy and undergrowth of the surrounding forest. "How unfortunate."

"You said something. Itachi?" Tatsuya asked as he snapped out of his fudge, Kaede following quickly behind.

"Yes," the Uchiha replied, "Kaede for Team Lead?"

The older boy shrugged, conveniently missing the challenging glare the girl shot him. "I don't care," he said.

"So, what are we going to do now, Team Lead?" Itachi asked, turning his attention to Kaede even as he enthralled her to swap the original scroll with a Henge'd replacement from his pouch.